2 more die from anthrax, more infected

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Anthrax Hits 2 D.C. Postal Workers

By Laura Meckler Associated Press Writer Monday, Oct. 22, 2001; 2:48 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON –– Two Washington-area postal workers have been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax and two more employees at the same facility have died of symptoms consistent with the disease, officials said Monday as the nation grappled with an unprecedented bioterrorism threat.

Dr. Ivan Walks, the city's chief health official, also said authorities are investigating as many as nine more cases that have aroused concern. He said he did not know how many of the nine were postal workers or how many were hospitalized.

The disclosures came as postal workers by the dozens lined up for testing, and city authorities urged anyone connected with the affected Brentwood central mail facility to come forward immediately for screening.

"This is a different day," the city health official said at a news conference.

He said the unidentified man diagnosed with the disease was hospitalized in suburban Virginia, at the same facility where another postal worker was diagnosed over the weekend.

He said authorities were conducting tests on clinical samples from the two postal workers who died.

In one case, he said, preliminary blood testing had further aroused suspicion that anthrax may have played a role.

In the case of the second person, he said, "We do not have even the positive blood cultures ... but his clinical course is highly suspicious."

The disclosures marked a troubling turn in the nation's bioterrorism scare.

"Anyone who was working in that back postal area during the last 11 days, you must today immediately come here ... to receive prophylactic medication and to be evaluated."

Deborah Willhite, a Postal Service senior vice president, said there are roughly 2,000 employees at that Brentwood postal facility in Washington.

Over the last 2½ weeks four men, including one who died, have been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax, a disease not seen in this country since 1978. Six others, including two postal workers in New Jersey, have been infected with a highly treatable form of anthrax that is contracted through the skin. Thousands have been tested for exposure to the bacteria.

City officials made their startling disclosures as the Capitol reopened but congressional offices remained shuttered for environmental testing.

And nearly three weeks since anthrax first surfaced in Florida, the government announced that federal money from the Superfund environmental program will be used to clean up the headquarters of a Boca Raton-based tabloid company where one man died of the disease.

Willhite issued an unusual plea to reporters to extend prayers to the families of the dead postal workers, rather than barrage them with questions. "Give them time to grieve and to take care of their own business," she said.

She said the affected facility would remain closed as long as it takes to make sure it's safe again.

Officials over the weekend had said that a 57-year-old postal worker, Leroy Richmond, had been hospitalized with inhalation anthrax in serious and stable condition.

Officials did not provide the names of any of the other affected workers.

On Capitol Hill, congressional sources said it was unlikely that all the House and Senate office buildings would reopen on Tuesday, as officials had hoped. These sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said testing was continuing but it was not clear whether all the results would be in hand by the beginning of the work day on Tuesday.

Officials discovered anthrax over the weekend in a building where mail for House offices is processed. These officials said there had been no test results yet indicating anthrax in any of the other House office buildings, leaving authorities to wonder whether an as-yet undiscovered piece of mail was the source of spores found on a mail room machine.

The anthrax outbreak first surfaced more than two weeks ago in Boca Raton, Fla., when one employee of American Media Inc. died of the disease, and a second was hospitalized.

Postmaster General John Potter said the U.S. Postal Service was increasing security at its facilities and beginning to introduce technology that can sanitize mail. But he said postal workers were not being ordered to wear gloves and face masks.

There was a brief scare at another government building in Washington when the Supreme Court building was closed after a powdery substance was found in the clerk's office Monday. Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said the material was tested and determined to be construction-related material.

Health and postal officials said they do not know how Richmond, one of the Washington postal workers, came into contact with enough anthrax to allow the bacteria to travel into his respiratory system and lodge deep in his lungs.

Surgeon General David Satcher said inhalation anthrax has been fatal about 80 percent of the time. "But that's in the past. We have different technology today," he said on CNN's "Late Edition" Sunday. "It is not yet hopeless."

Health investigators moved quickly to determine whether anthrax was present in either of two postal facilities where Richmond worked and whether other employees might have been exposed.

More than 2,100 workers at Washington's main mail-processing center and 150 at an air mail-handling center near Baltimore-Washington International Airport were asked to report for nasal swab testing, which will help determine where in the buildings exposure may have occurred. Employees will each be given a 10-day supply of antibiotics to ward off infection in case they were exposed.

Some 1,000 workers were tested Sunday.

Officials also planned extensive environmental testing at both facilities. They will use the results, along with nasal swab testing, to determine which workers need a full course of preventive antibiotics.

-- baba wawa (white@wing.conspiracy), October 22, 2001

Answers

Hope all you towelhead pity mongrels see this as it really is. You didnt give a flying filthy fuck about the 6000 of our lives lost and still post fucking pictures of the poor afghanytans. Let this sink into your soft ass

-- (Fuck@the.towelheads), October 22, 2001.

Postal Worker Was Diagnosed With Flu

By Stephen Manning Associated Press Writer Monday, Oct. 22, 2001; 7:26 p.m. EDT

CLINTON, Md. –– A Washington postal worker who apparently died of anthrax had been examined a day before his death by doctors who were unaware of where he worked and diagnosed him with the flu, officials said Monday.

The 47-year-old man, who was not identified, first went to the Southern Maryland Medical Center at 2 a.m. Sunday after fainting in church Saturday with flu-like symptoms.

The man, an employee at the Washington central postal facility that delivers mail to Congress, did not tell doctors where he worked during that visit, and they did not ask, officials said.

Blood tests and a chest X-ray revealed nothing that suggested anthrax at that time and he was sent home with a diagnosis of the flu, said Dr. Venkat Mani, head of the hospital's infectious diseases department.

"There was nothing indicative to have us suspect even on a heightened state that this gentlemen had something out of the ordinary," said Scott Kelso, head of the hospital's emergency room.

The man was rushed back to the hospital in an ambulance about 5:45 a.m. Monday, suffering from respiratory distress, low blood-pressure, a fast heart rate and flu-like symptoms, Mani said.

He was given high doses of antibiotics and put on a ventilator, but died six hours later. The cause of death was listed as preliminary pulmonary anthrax and septic shock, Mani said.

A blood culture smear showed bacteria suggestive of anthrax, but Mani cautioned that doctors won't be sure until the culture is completed Tuesday.

Hospital officials would not identify the man or where he worked, but officials in Washington said one of two postal workers who apparently died of anthrax was at Southern Maryland Medical Center.

Postal officials said the two worked at the Brentwood mail facility that likely handled the anthrax-laced letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

The second worker died Sunday at Greater Southeast Hospital in Washington. Officials would not identify the victim.

-- (don't@trust.doctors), October 22, 2001.


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